Burning Rubber
by Fuckup McDumbass
Summary: Cronus finds Meenah after years of not speaking, and almost immediately loses her. She's skipping town, since the Crockercorp empire is just another way to hold her down. Will he be able to keep up with her and make amends? Humanstuck, CronusxMeenah. Possible later smut.


Cronus's rust bucket of a car chugged along the road, playing some rather loud music that annoyed the other drivers alongside him. He worked at Zahhak Mechanics, an automobile shop, but the owner also fiddled around with many projects on the side. He smoked a cigarette contentedly, always loving the feeling of the open road. A familiar one that was one of the only constants in his life. He had focused on the feeling, letting it calm him until he saw a familiar, rather pretty figure on the side of the road that caused his heart to pick up speed and for his cigarette to be dropped from his calloused fingers and onto the street.. Decked out in a leather jacket and tight pants, he glanced over to spot her long braids cascading down her back as she stuck her thumb out. Then it hits him. It's his old childhood friend Meenah. She had stopped talking to him a while back, and they hadn't seen each other in quite a while. His eyes widened and he pulled over to her and she frowned when she saw the driver of the car that had pulled over.  
He pulls his key out of the ignition and puts it in his pocket, getting out and going up to her. "Well, if it ain't lil Meemee. Long time no see, baby."  
"You know I hate when you call me that." She huffs, keeping her thumb out, as if waiting for someone else, not bothering to greet him.  
"Yeah, yeah, just as uptight as ever I see. Where have you been, babe? I ain't heard from ya in forever." She groans, like she's in the middle of an exam and the kid behind her keeps spitting spitballs at her. Her interruptions of finding a driver weren't pleasing her.  
"Around. Avoiding you, the usual." She keeps her pout, taking her goggles off, letting them drop to hang around her neck as they fog up from the summer's humidity.  
"Aw, come on now. I ain't that bad. Tell me, what's got you out here hitchhikin'? Ain't safe yanno. Lucky for you that I found ya." He keeps his hands in his pockets, knowing if he dared touch her he'd probably get a taste of her pocketknife, Big Bertha.  
"You know damn well. My old lady wants me to take over Crockercorp, and I ain't doin' it." She huffs, like it was obvious.  
"Well, no I didn't, actually. Where you headed?"  
"No where with you." She states firmly, looking back to the road. Cronus ignores this and picks up her bag, bringing it to his car. Meenah puts her thumb down when she realizes what he was doing, and with a scowl on her face approaches him, leaning up to get in the taller delinquent's olive, tanned face.  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She tries to grab for her suitcase, but Cronus gets in the way of her, blocking her advantage.  
"You ain't goin' anywhere with some stranger, Meens." He acts like he was her father, though he knew that there was a shitstorm coming his way, and he was the asshole in the middle of it. "Besides, it'll give us a chance to catch up, y'know? Let me help you out for once." Meenah's eyes widened and she grits her teeth in frustration, trying to get past him to her suitcase.  
"Get the out of the way, Ampora! I'd rather go with anyone but you." She tries desperately to grapple past him into the backseat to get her pink suitcase, but to no avail.  
"Wow, rude. Why don't you just take my fuckin' offer for once? If I don't pick you up, who will?" At this, Meenah doesn't even pause.  
"Somebody else. Now gimme my bag!" She snarls and Cronus shuts the door. "Just come with me. I won't even bug you, just let me give you a lift." She sighs and pulls back, folding her arms, defeated.  
"Fine. Do anything shitty and I'm jumping out of the moving car." She huffs, going to the passanger seat, as Cronus gets back in as well, turning the engine over as he revs it up, sticking the keys back in the ignition.  
"Don't gotta worry about that, babe." He comments brightly, gripping the steering wheel and pulling back into traffic. "Listen, I gotta go to work, but my shift ain't that long today. You can just hang around, and I can take you to lunch or somethin' if you want." Meenah rolls her eyes and leans back into the seat.  
"Just get me to the train station." Cronus frowns at this, headed to his work even though she hadn't given the okay yet.  
"What? Where are you even going to go?" Meenah shrugs, even though he was focused on the road and couldn't see her gesture.  
"Got a friend in New Orleans, I was gonna go there, but really, I might just take the first one out of here. I got enough money." Cronus's heart sank. The first time he sees her in years, and she's leaving again, just like that. He's barely even had a chance to hit on her yet, or somehow woo her back into talking to him again.  
"Well, hey, before you go, why don't you go to one last party with me? There's gonna be this huge one downtown, it's gonna be great. Think of it as a going away party or somethin'." Meenah just shakes her head.  
"I don't think so."  
"Wanna come to my place and hang out a little while? So I can say goodbye?"  
"Nah." He groans at her responses, lighting up a cigarette once they get to a stoplight. This was really stressing him out.  
"So you're sayin' you don't wanna spend any time with me at all?" He asks, glancing over at her before returning his eyes to the stoplight which had turned green by then.  
"Congratulations, Ampora, you figured it out. You should get a blue ribbon. 'Cronus Ampora, IQ of a fourth grader.'" She looks at her nails and brushes some hair out of her face. Cronus frowns and sighs, taking a deep drag.  
"Look, I know you don't wanna take over the 'Crockercorp Empire' or whatever you like to call it, but that don't mean you can't cut me some slack or have a little fun." He lets the ashes drop out of the opened window, taking another drag.  
"Like anyfin with you would be fin", she frowns, keeping her attention out the window towards the other passing cars.  
"I don't know why you have this thing with me, Meenah. What'd I ever do to you?", he asks. He knew he was pressing his luck, and it was probably not the right thing to ask. Definitely not the right thing to ask. But it's not like he had done anything but pay her compliments, right? Meenah turns her gaze from the traffic to her greasy partner, her jaw clenching.  
"Are you for fuckin' reel right now?", she asks, turning the music off to look at him. "What haven't you done to me? Ugh", she groans. "Pull over."  
"What? Meenah, we're in the middle of traffic. There ain't even a place to-"  
"I said. Pull. Over." Cronus groans at that but manages to find a place to pull over.  
"You can't seriously be doing this right nowv", he mutters, though mostly to himself as he runs a hand through his slicked back hair; If only he was as slick as the grease that kept it from going to it's natural curly state.  
"You're damn right I'm doing this right now. I'm not gonna sit by and let you go back to our old frondship. If you want me to explain everyfin you done wrong, I'd need at least another 4 sweeps", she growls, getting her suitcase and sitting on the side of the road stubbornly.  
"Come on, Meenah, get back in the car. I'll get you lunch or somethin, no funny stuff, alright? I'll shut up. But I'm not gonna let just any goon come and-" Cronus was cut off by the sound of another, much nicer car pulling up behind him. A short kid stepped out, looking at Meenah and then to Cronus.  
"Is this man bothering you, ma'am", he asks, looking towards her with concern.  
Cronus growls "No, I'm not", but his response is overlooked.  
"I was asking the lady, thank you very much", he says as he waves a hand dismissively at Cronus. Meenah nods and watches Cronus get decked in the face. Within moments, Cronus's vision is blurry and Meenah was gone. What the fuck? Cronus wants to cry. He wants to scream. What the actual fuck just happened? But he does what he's best at. He gets back in the car and starts to go to work... But then it hits him. Meenah's skipping town. He has nothing there for him. A dead end job, no friends. He watches the nicer car leave, and does the creepiest thing he can think of. He follows them. If she's skipping town, goddamn it, he was going too. The car swerves through traffic efforlessly, and it's hard for Cronus to keep a comfortable unnoticable distance, but finally, he manages to catch up to them at the train station. She had said New Orleans, right? He had shown up a bit later, and honestly had to make a few guesses as he goes through the terminals, watching Meenah board. He practically trips over himself, taking someone else's ticket and hopping on just as it had started to pull away. He looks down the aisle for his beloved Meenah. He had no idea what the fuck he was doing; but if he could get out of where he was at, it didn't bother him. He could make this work; he was determined to. He spies Meenah getting in the back, and her face when she saw him was a horrible grimace of both disgust and shock. He goes down the other people and sits down next to her out of breath.  
"H-hey, I", he groans as he wipes some blood from his face. The guy had hit him hard enough to bloody his nose, and he hadn't noticed it until now. He looks at Meenah with a goofy, ridiculous smile that could have lightened up the entire train. He huffed and puffed, trying to catch his breath as he sat down next to her. She's speechless for a moment before responding.  
"Cronus, what the fuck!?", she asks, making dramatic gestures with her hands. Cronus acts as if she hadn't said anything, going on with what he was saying instead with clearly drained breath as he grasped for it.  
"So, was the guy nice to you?", he asks, frowning as he continues to wipe blood away, the train too far gone now for him to be thrown off.


End file.
